Materials

Miniature Painting

Islamic miniature painting is generally understood to mean small paintings that are or once were part of a manuscript, used as a frontispiece or an illustration for a text. Drawings and individual paintings have, however, also been preserved. They were either sketches or were intended to be placed as independent works of art in an album.

The miniatures usually had a paper base, but cardboard and in rare cases cotton or silk cloth were also used. The brilliant colors are usually opaque.

The oldest preserved miniature paintings were made in around the year 1000, but not until around 1200 were they found in larger numbers. Islamic miniature painting is often categorized rather summarily into four regional schools: the Arab, the Persian, the Indian, and the Ottoman Turkish.

Miniature from a copy of Rashid al-Din’s Jami al-tawarikh. “Tayang Khan Presented with the Head of the Mongol Leader Ong Khan”

India, Mughal; c. 1596
Miniature: 35.1 × 20.9 cm

By commissioning a copy of Rashid al-Din’s famous History of the World, Akbar emphasized that his own family was descended from Genghis Khan. The beautiful, colorful, and very detailed miniature illustrates an episode from the history of the Mongols. The soldiers are shown with contemporary Mughal paraphernalia, for example muskets. Horribly realistic details, such as decapitated heads, are shown alongside a puzzle picture of an elephant’s head at the top of the cliffs.

A contemporary note under the painting states that it was drawn by Miskina and colored by Kesu, both of whom worked in Akbar’s studio.